


Since There's No Place To Go

by elle_stone



Series: Wild & Wonderful [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:09:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9259553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone
Summary: West Virginia 2009. Clarke visits the Blakes and brings them a post-Christmas gift.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [BellarkeFanFic Fest's Winter/Holiday round](http://bellarkefanficfest.tumblr.com/post/154753943998/round-4-winter-holiday-prompts-below-are-all) on tumblr.
> 
> Title is obviously from the song "Let It Snow."

Past the blue bridge the road takes a sharp turn, curving left in a way that always makes Clarke’s stomach want to flip. This isn’t the first twist or bend in her morning’s journey, but it is the only one with a name— _Jaha’s_ _Curve_ , proclaims a tiny sign stuck in the dirt next to the shoulder—and when the road straightens out again, she knows she’s almost there. The mountains that have been guiding her along fall back, watching over her from a distance now and leaving a broad strip of flat land next to the road. The houses here are mostly square, one-story wooden structures, interspersed with converted trailers, the occasional free standing garage or wooden lean-to. The one that Clarke is watching for is painted white, with a small front porch decorated with red ribbons and a simple string of lights, and a wooden swing set structure off to the left. When she catches sight of it, she turns off the road and bumps into the driveway, parks her little two-door behind Bellamy’s truck, and gets out. There is a thin layer of snow on the ground. It crunches under her boots as she walks up to the door.

*

Bellamy wakes up to a quiet house. It’s so warm under the blankets piled up on his bed that he kicked off his thick woolen socks in his sleep; he finds the first shoved between the mattress and the baseboard and the other on the floor. Once they’re safely on his feet again, he shuffles into the kitchen, tripping himself up in the doorway when he yawns, wide enough to make his jaw pop, and rubs the sleep out of the corners of his eyes.

The kitchen’s not spotless but it’s not a mess either. There are a handful of dishes from last night still in the sink. But he ignores them. He stares out the window instead, at the backyard and the mountains rising up beyond it, watching over the small house, and everything covered in the remnant of last night’s snow. Everything utterly undisturbed. He smiles slowly and breaths in.

And when Octavia’s voice cuts through his thoughts, her voice calling “Bell! Bell! Bell, did you see the snow?” as her footsteps pound against the floor toward the kitchen, he just grins. He knew that was coming. His sister takes a wide turn through the doorway, hanging onto the edge of the doorway as her socks slip on the wood. She careens toward him, almost slips but she’s smiling too wide to notice, and he grabs her at the last moment and pretends to be annoyed.

“Hold on a second there, speedy,” he says, and swings her around and into one of the kitchen chairs.

O is undeterred. She kicks at the chair legs and asks, “Can we go out?”

“After breakfast,” he answers. “The snow will still be there after you eat. I promise.”

*

Clarke knocks on the door with one hand, holds the other behind her back. There’s no answer at first, so she plays with the fringe at the end of her scarf and looks around at the snow that’s blown in at the edges of the porch. Behind her, she hears a truck sweep down the road and through the slush, but other than that the morning is quiet and calm, not even a breath of wind to make the chill unpleasant or harsh.

She jumps when the door opens and then Bellamy is standing there, hair sleep-tousled, in his old Arkadia Astronauts hoodie and a pair of red and green plaid flannel pants, looking confused for just a moment before he beams at her.

“You look festive,” Clarke says, as he leans in for a kiss.

“I look like it’s my day off and I slept in. Not sure how you got ‘festive’ from that.”

She tugs at his pants pocket and repeats, “Festive,” and he just rolls his eyes. Then she takes her other hand from behind her back and presents him with a box of hot chocolate mix, wrapped around with a red ribbon, and adds, “I brought you this. Belated Merry Christmas!”

“And here I thought we’d already exchanged gifts,” Bellamy murmurs, taking the box from her, glancing over the front of it with a small smile. “Let me guess. This is from Kane and you’re re-gifting it.”

“Yeah, it might be slightly expired,” Clarke admits. “And I might have been the only one of his employees to actually show up to her shift yesterday.” She stomps her feet and rubs her hands together, making a show of chilliness. “So are you going to invite me in for hot chocolate or what? I’ve made it _very_ easy for you.”

He opens his mouth, but before he can actually answer, they hear a sound like a small mob running toward them, and its source, one very excited elementary schooler, skids to a halt at his side. “I’m done! Hi Clarke. Snow now?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “That was the fastest breakfast I’ve ever seen you eat. Why can’t you be that quick when you’re getting ready for school, huh?”

“I think you know the answer to that one,” Octavia replies with a little eye roll of her own. She’s rocking back and forth on her heels, fidgeting, unable to stay still, and Clarke is about to say _take pity on her, Bell_ , when he tousles her hair and says:

“Don’t forget your hat and mittens.”

“I won’t!” she promises, and then leaps off toward the closet for her coat. The little kick of her heels makes Clarke think of Speedy Gonzales, of little cartoon figures generating dust clouds with their feet, and she has to hide her giggles behind her hand.

*

Bellamy pulls on his boots and a hat, leaves the hot chocolate on top of the bookshelf by the door, and follows Octavia out. While she tracks footprints through the once-pristine snow of the front yard, he and Clarke settle down on the porch swing. She tucks her feet up underneath her, rests her head on his shoulder, hides her hand in the pocket of his sweatshirt; he wraps his arm over her shoulders and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

For several minutes, she doesn’t say anything, and neither does he.

His thoughts wander.

They’ve known each other for six months, he and Clarke, have been dating in a tentative, but remarkably easy, way for two. They met in an Intro to Poli Sci course—Bellamy’s been taking classes part-time now for two years, whittling away at the requirements for his degree—and because the class was small, and he’d never seen her before, and because, in her bright pink dress and strappy sandals and rich designer glasses, she was hard to miss, he couldn’t help but wonder where she was really from. Obviously not from around here. She answered questions with a confidence that maybe should have been off-putting, how it bordered on arrogance, but wasn’t. After the second week he started to sit next to her, and they got to talking about everything but their life stories, and before summer session was even over he knew he was in deep.

“I don’t think that snow man is going to work out,” Clarke says, now, and nods over to Octavia. The snow is the dense, wet sort that packs together nicely but there’s just not enough of it to form anything more than a few snowballs, if that. Yet his sister will not be deterred.

“Maybe he’ll just be a very small snow man,” Bellamy answers. O’s been waiting for a snowfall since Thanksgiving, woke up disappointed on Christmas Day to the sight of nothing but dead grass and an overcast sky outside her window, and if this is the closest they’ll get to a white Christmas—a couple of inches on the 27th of December, some slightly-old hot chocolate to warm them when they finally tramp in from the cold—well that’s enough. He’ll take it.

And this too: how Clarke snuggles a little closer to him, squeezes him tight for a moment, and concedes, “Yeah. That’s true. He’ll be cute.”

*

Clarke has been to Bellamy’s house three times in the last week, most recently on Christmas Eve. They spent the whole evening together, exchanging gifts under Bellamy’s small Christmas tree, then watching holiday movies with Octavia until she fell asleep. Christmas Day itself she spent with her mom. She hadn’t been expecting much out of the holiday, hadn’t expected much from any part of her life for the last half year, since her family’s fortunes took their downswing, since she dropped out of school and moved with Abby to the old Mayfield farmhouse, the one Abby had never even put on the market, even though Grandpa Mayfield has been dead now for almost three years. The house was drafty and small and brought back old memories of childhood Thanksgivings and Easters. For a few weeks, Clarke hated every floorboard, every creak in the stair, every quiet breakfast.

Then she started to put herself back together again.

She enrolled in summer courses and she took a job at a small coffee shop downtown and she met a boy—an opinionated, combative, handsome, kind, dedicated, fascinating boy—which she thought was the least important thing, which she thinks now might be at least the _nicest_ thing.

Once Octavia has built her mini-snowman, she runs back across the lawn and up the porch steps to them, asking them what they think. “He’s kinda missing a nose,” she admits, with a glance over her shoulder. “And eyes.”

“I’m sure we can find something inside to fix that,” Bellamy promises. He takes his arm from around Clarke and sits up a little straighter, getting ready to stand. “Hot chocolate break?”

Octavia nods quickly. “Yes, yes please. Definitely. You brought some, right?” she asks Clarke.

“Sure did,” Clarke answers, and stretches a little as she plants her feet back down on the ground. She’s about to stand when Octavia pulls on one of the strings of her hat, fingers curling around the little white pouf dangling there.

“I like your hat. These are really cute.”

“I like yours too.” She tugs gently on the red pom-pom on the top of Octavia’s head. “Also really cute.”

Bellamy has already stood up, and as he shoves open the front door with his shoulder he asks, “And what am I wearing that’s cute?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke answers, in a slow and thoughtful tone. “Those socks look pretty adorable.” She creeps up behind Bellamy as she speaks, then pretends to ambush him, her fingers tickling at his sides as they trip together over the threshold and through the door.

*

Bellamy flicks the gas on and a small blue flame pops up, with a quiet whooshing sound, beneath the back left burner of the stove. He sets a small pot of milk over it to warm. Behind him, Octavia is rummaging through the cupboards looking for the marshmallows she’s _sure_ they still have _somewhere_. She finds them eventually, though they’re a little old and a little stale, but Clarke examines them carefully and declares they’ll do just fine, for the purpose.

Later, when the marshmallows are softening in the still-too-hot hot chocolate, and Octavia is sorting through a pile of mismatched buttons looking for the perfect snowmen eyes, Bellamy looks up and catches Clarke staring.

“Something on your mind?” he asks.

She shrugs, glances down into her mug for a moment, then back up. “Just thinking.”

“Yeah?” He shuffles his feet forward under the table, until his toes bump up against her toes. She traps his feet under feet and he bites back a smile. “About what?”

“New Year’s. I was—I was thinking.” She takes a deep breath, then lets it out, pretending it is nothing. “I was thinking maybe you and Octavia would like to come to my house? You could meet my mom. We’re not doing anything special so it would just be a low-key thing.” She sips at her hot chocolate, then flicks her tongue briefly across her top lip. “The house is kinda big for two people. We have spare rooms—you could spend the night, if you wanted.”

And he’d thought she was nervous about the meeting-her-mom thing.

They’ve never spent the night together, not straight through to morning; they’ve talked about it, shared silly domestic fantasies with each other, but he can’t leave Octavia alone, of course, and Clarke’s too wary of trying to explain her presence at the breakfast table if she woke up at the Blakes’. He’s never said as much, but Clarke has obviously gathered that she’s the first serious girlfriend he’s had since his mother died, that this has never come up before. The thought of waking up in the full light of day with Clarke right by his side strikes him as the best possible start to the new year.

All he does is nod and ask, “Would your mom mind?”

“No, I don’t think so. She wants to meet you.” Clarke smiles. “I told her only good things.”

“That must have been hard,” Octavia says, picking up a small black button and holding it up to the light.

Bellamy pretends to be offended, but Clarke just shakes her head. “Nope. Easiest thing I’ve ever done.” She reaches across the table and takes Bellamy’s hand in hers. “So what do you think?”

“I think it’s a date.”

She’s watching him, smiling and soft; he doesn’t know what she’s thinking but he can guess. He doesn’t realize that he’s wearing a mirror expression his own face.

“And _I_ think you two should just kiss already, ‘cause you obviously want to,” Octavia declares, hopping up with her two chosen buttons in her hand. “Bell, do we have any carrots? Like any small ones? He’s gonna need a nose.”

“I think we can find something.” He stands up, but before he heads to fridge, he stops next to Clarke, and leans down, and tilts up her chin so that, when she stretches up just a little bit, their lips can meet in a gentle, sweet, lingering kiss.

He doesn’t realize Clarke’s hand is on his cheek until he pulls away. 

*

Octavia ends up giving her snowman one black and one blue button eye, and a baby carrot for a nose, and two small sticks for arms. They check the weather forecast and it calls for cold temperatures all night and into tomorrow, no chance of anything melting for a day or two yet. So the snowman will live, for a little while at least. But they take a picture just in case, so that they can’t possibly forget.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The name "Mayfield" comes from Ruth Mayfield, one of the Grounders on the plaque in the Ark in Season 1.


End file.
